


i've traveled all this way (for something)

by crazinaway



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, San Francisco, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:24:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1328431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazinaway/pseuds/crazinaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>'"Your story," he repeats -- and oh, right, Blaine is actually supposed to listen to the words coming out of the mouth of the handsome boy with the somewhat questionable skill of getting complete and total strangers to come and talk to him.'</i>
</p><p> </p><p>In which Blaine decides to spend his early morning wandering over the Golden Gate Bridge and almost literally stumbles upon an enigmatic boy with the preference to find deserted seashores rather than go to a café.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i've traveled all this way (for something)

**Author's Note:**

> First and foremost, canon divergence: this version of Kurt is the version that never met Blaine when things got rough with Karofsky -- therefore he was more effected by it, and ended up needing some kind of counselling; in my head he was sent to a group in Columbus and became much more free-spirited -- the calmer, sort of hippier version of himself. Also, Blaine and Kurt are the same age.
> 
> Title is from Imagine Dragons' _On Top of the World_ , and this entire fic was inspired by [this](http://www.flickr.com/photos/reallybadradio/6853171852/) pic.

The clear morning air has a strangely pleasant smell; an odd combination of sea, salty water and sand, and the fresh hot coffee in his hand. It’s unusual, foreign, but Blaine finds that he likes it. It reminds him of breakfasts in their beach-house when he was young and of the ocean two-hundred feet below him, reminds him that he’s far away from home and that nothing is the same here, for better or for worse.

If he's being honest, when his parents urged him to join his brother on a vacation at San Francisco before he went off to college, he wasn't ecstatic. It was less about the location than it was about the idea of spending extended periods of time with Cooper, with nowhere to run and nothing to distract him, but in the end, Cooper turned out to be less of a bother than Blaine thought he'd be, barely ever even spending his time with him. In Blaine’s mind, vacation is about being somewhere new and exciting, going out to soak the unfamiliar environment. In Cooper’s mind, vacation is air-conditioned hotel rooms and girls in bikinis by the side of the pool. It oddly works for them, though, and so far, neither party is complaining.

Of course, on the flip side of the coin, there are numerous positive things to have come out of the decision to join the trip after all. The city is utterly astounding, from the ocean to the buildings, the people he meets and the culture that surrounds him. It’s somewhat of a shock to a small-town boy, even one that has traveled the country before; there’s just something startling about it, every time he lives Ohio and realizes that not everywhere is the same.

In the end, the vacation and Cooper's love of hotel-rooms and Blaine’s own love of exploring is, essentially, how Blaine finds himself in said place; two-hundred feet above water, coffee cup in hand, musing about the smell of the air. It is sometime near four a.m., and he’s walking on the Golden Gate Bridge, and he acknowledges that even for a morning person this is a little far-fetched, but he can’t bring himself to care when everything he sees is breathtaking and memorable.

It isn't early enough for people to rush back home from bars or late-night visits at friends' houses; it also isn't late enough for people to wake up, drive to work, start their day. There are a few cars on the road, of course, but their number is significantly smaller than it will be thirty minutes later, so Blaine chooses this particular time to wander around on the walkway of the bridge, admiring the pinkish-blue tint of the sky above him.

(It may be the half-dressed girl Cooper has pushed through their room's door that encouraged his decision, but she’s not the sole motive, not really.)

Blaine's short trip by foot was originally scheduled for about twenty minutes -- twenty minutes to clear his head, have a moment of peace, and then he'd head back to grab some breakfast and find something fun to do for the day; he can't say he's not content as he is, though -- his coffee is great, his clothes are just warm enough, and so Blaine isn't overly anxious to get back to the hotel. He stops walking, turning towards the sea and resting his elbows on the rail. He's busy enjoying the view, thoughts empty and aimless and light as air, before he unwarily looks down at the tiny piece of shore beneath him and does a double-take, almost spitting a mouthful of liquid out.

There's a man down there.

Not in the scary bloody-body-on-the-beach, CSI kind of way, as far as Blaine can tell -- which is good, because even though he's sure he's playing the part of the one who discovers the dead person perfectly, wide-eyed and gaping, finding a dead man isn't exactly on his agenda. No, it’s in the _there's someone who's sitting on the sand two hundred feet beneath Blaine on something that's barely a shore, and wow he probably really shouldn't be there (how did he even get there?)_ kind of way.

It's better than a dead body, on many levels, but it makes Blaine stop and stare just the same.

The man's form is small from where Blaine is standing -- the passersby must think he’s completely lost it, bending over the rail like that -- but he can clearly see the person is male, has brown hair, and is thankfully very much alive.

Well, at least there's that.

" _Hey!_ " Blaine screams with all his might, and really, this probably isn't such a good idea -- don't talk to strangers, Red Riding Hood's mother said to her, and look where that brought her -- but there's someone who is crazy enough to somehow find a way to get down there, and his reason must be a hell of a story. If nothing, Blaine is a sucker for good stories. " _Hey! What are you doing down there?_ "

Well, Blaine reasons to himself as he turns his head just slightly to see a woman walking by giving him a frightened look and quickening her steps, if they already thought he was nuts for bending over the rail, why not go through with it.

Blaine's voice must've been loud enough, because the man turns his head around from where it was facing the ocean and titles it upwards, features frowning at Blaine. At least, Blaine imagines he's frowning -- it's extremely difficult to make out his face from the distance.

" _What?_ " The stranger screams back, and Blaine takes a moment to appreciate the fact that he is having a conversation with a questionable stranger when they are more than sixty meters apart -- he'd like to see Cooper try to say _his_ vacation was more interesting. The man's voice is somewhat faint, but it's not impossible to hear -- Blaine would like to call that an achievement. " _Are you talking to me?_ "

Blaine nods, and then he realizes it's a valid possibility that the stranger can't even see him nodding, so he yells back, " _Yes!_ "

The man simply stands there, hands in his pockets without saying anything for a long moment, before he yells, " _You should come down here!_ "

Blaine blinks. There's hardly any way he’s just heard that correctly.

But then the guy is pulling his hands out of his pockets and clearly pointing to his left -- Blaine's right -- and Blaine notices there are metallic stairs going all the way down to the seashore. It looks like an emergency exit, and it doesn't take a genius to understand that climbing over the handrail and down these stairs isn't the most legal thing Blaine has ever done.

You can't go down there, is the first thing he comes up with -- and that's a good sign, because Blaine was almost starting to believe the passerby and think he's gone mad. This guy could be anything in the world; a murderer, a rapist, a lunatic of that kind who kidnaps people and does experiments on their bodies -- who knows what will happen if Blaine went down there, especially since no one even knows where he is? His body will never be found, washed by the Pacific, and his mom will spend the rest of her years praying on the son that will never come home.

But then again, if his intentions are to hurt people, why would he be so far away from any other human? And Blaine only stops to think for a moment before accepting this argument -- because this is this whole trip, this whole vacation's point: to avoid logic for two weeks and just go with the flow -- and in the spur of the moment, which probably makes him more of a lunatic than this man could possibly be, he quickly makes his way over to the stairs; later, he'd realize he forgot his cup of coffee on the sidelines of the bridge, but now he's thoughtlessly climbing over the low barrier and is going down the metal stairs.

The man is waiting for him when he finally hops down the last stair; from up close, Blaine regrets his decision even less than he did before -- it can easily be said that this man, (boy, really -- he looks barely older than Blaine himself), is absolutely gorgeous. His hair has streaks of strawberry-blonde going through his swept-up styled coiffure, and his skin is pale and freckled, and Blaine is _this_ close to opening his mouth and asking if the boy remembered to put sunscreen on -- melanoma is something that should be taken by utter seriousness -- but he stops himself short. Better not frighten this odd stranger when Blaine himself is just as odd.

“Hello," Blaine greets. He isn't sure what to say now, and is even less sure about why he’s at loss. He’s a talker, a charmer by heart – using words and creating sentences is what he does best, speeches and essays and stories, but here with this stranger as company, he finds that he doesn’t know what to say. "You -- you asked me to come down here. I mean -- um, not really _asked_ , more like -- you know, _signaled_ , but..."

The boy raises an eyebrow in amusement, slowly crossing his arms over his chest -- affectively drawing Blaine's attention to his attire; he's wearing a loose shirt and ripped jeans, and a beaded necklace that disappears beneath his shirt. He looks so stylish, even in faded colors and old-looking ankle bracelet, that for a second Blaine wonders whether those clothes are designers’; but he then realizes no one will willingly climb down old, rusty stairs and sit on the sand with designers' clothes, and he feels stupid for standing there, analyzing a stranger's outfit.

"I have, and you've actually agreed and obeyed. That's a little fishy of you, don't you think?"

Blaine may have been woken up in three and a half in the morning by an unfamiliar girl, has forgotten his caffeine on the walkway of the Golden Gate Bridge, and is not exactly what one would call _normal_ , but even _his_ mind is awake enough to acknowledge that a man being there in the first place, in the very-early hours of the morning asking _Blaine_ if his actions aren’t a tad questionable, is more than a little ironic.

"So what are you doing down here?" Blaine opts for instead, avoiding answering what he hopes is a rhetorical question, because if he's going to sound like a fool, he might as well get some answers to his questions on the way.

The boy shrugs, wordlessly turning his back on Blaine and walking towards the line of the water, and lowers himself into a crossed-legged sitting position, mere inches from the ocean. The rising sun is dyeing everything in a pink-orange light, and Blaine can almost -- although not quite -- hear Tyler's voice, scoffing and muttering _such a hipster scene_ in his head. The boy is no exception to the natural canvas that is their surroundings, and Blaine refrains himself from feeling like a creep _\-- let's face it, you_ are _a creep, Anderson_ \-- as he watches the pale face glowing with light, cheeks flushed and eyes closed, breathing in the smell of the air just like Blaine did earlier.

He thinks it over a little bit, the meeting and the boy and the situation, then he wordlessly takes off his shoes and sits next to the good-looking, odd mystery he miraculously stumbled upon, because when taking his ability to speak well away, Blaine’s most cherished ability is to make friends as quickly as the bat of the eye.

Life has a strange way around things, he realizes. Like that time he got lost in the supermarket when he was four-years-old and instead of buying his favorite cereals with his mom, he found what would be his beloved dinosaur stuffed animal for the next few years. This is just like that -- only San Francisco's hardly a supermarket, he went for a walk instead of gotten lost, and he's no longer four-years-old; only mentally, sometimes, when Cooper steals his hair-gel.

"So am I going to need to spell out my request for your life story, or are you going to share it willingly?" the boy asks after a moment of silence between the two.

"My story?" Blaine blinks, and the boy smiles. A sweet, gentle crook of his lip upwards. This gesture cannot possibly be directed at him, Blaine rationally reminds himself when his heart starts beating faster, since the boy isn't even looking at him -- or anything, for that matter. His eyes are closed and his head is titled back, the picture of complete contentedness.

"Your story," he repeats -- and oh, right, Blaine is actually supposed to listen to the _words_ coming out of the mouth of the handsome boy with the somewhat questionable skill of getting complete and total strangers to come and talk to him. "You were walking on the Golden Bridge all by yourself at four a.m., you stopped and not only did you notice, but you also engaged in a conversation with someone who could have been anything terrible -- scaling from a thief to Justin Bieber; you came down here when I did nothing more than ask you to -- I met people like you before. You have a story. You're _that_ kind of person."

Blaine has no idea which part of the sentence he should even focus on; the fact that Justin Bieber is apparently classified as something worse than a child-molester or murderer, the mention of 'I met people like you', or what _'that_ kind' even _means_ \-- but the boy is asking for his story, and now that he did, it makes Blaine think. When Blaine thinks, bad things happen -- things like his brain melting through his skull and out of his ears because of too much brooding, too much questions, and too little breathing; what _is_ his story? Does he even have one? Does every person existing has a story? Is it something he's supposed to share with someone he doesn't know -- and does it even matter, considering he's way past the point of caring?

"You're overthinking this," the boy informs him, and Blaine wonders how he knows that, since he hasn't looked at him yet, and Blaine hasn't made a single sound -- the only audible sound is of the ocean around them, the occasional seagull, and the faint noise of cars. Blaine's brain doesn't _actually_ make noise as it works, does it? "How about I tell you mine first," the boy kindly offers, finally opening his eyes, straightening up and placing his hands on his lap.

Blaine is secretly very much at peace with that suggestion. It's like doing an oral presentation with a new teacher -- being the first in line is the worst thing that could possibly happen to you,  because you don't know if this teacher likes things to be long or short, full of advanced words and imagery or straight-on approach, metaphors and explanations or pure information, but going second isn't so bad. You have time to prepare and learn from the mistakes of the poor soul going before you.

"Well, I'm here to make sure I don't go insane and burn up an entire apartment."

Blaine's eyebrows shoot up on their own account, because, wow, this is some way to start a story -- and yeah, by this point, Blaine's pretty damn sure he should be terrified and run for the hills of Mount Davidson. He's a bit less sure of what it means that he doesn't feel the urge to do anything near that.

The boy seems to sense something is wrong, because he turns his head slightly over his shoulder, observes the expression on Blaine's face, and laughs, shaking his head. "Okay, so that might've come out wrong, I guess. I'm not a pyromaniac, don't worry -- me lighting you up on fire is the last thing you should worry about. What I meant was that I'm heading to college in about two months, and I'm going to live with my best friend in one tiny, probably crappy apartment for the next four years or so. Maybe more, maybe less, but that's about it, and -- well, I love her, I do," he smiles as he says it, and that makes Blaine think that maybe there is more between them than just that, like those rom-coms where the two best friends realize they love each other more than anything, that they are each other's soulmates anyone-else-be-damned, and everyone gets their happily ever after. He would deny if someone ever questioned the way his stomach tightened at the thought. "But she's a little -- difficult, sometimes."

Blaine can relate to that without actively trying. Tyler's been his best friend since he was a wobbly three-years-old with an addiction to superheroes and bowties, and they successfully survived many twists and turns and changes in life together, but she's still a little crazy, and a little unpredictable, and has a very low regard to things like _rules_ and _laws_ , and if _he_ had to move in with her, he would definitely need to mentally prepare himself first -- and maybe childproof the place.

"So you came here to take a vacation from her?" Blaine smiles; suddenly the idea of just packing everything he owns and disappearing more promising than ever. Like those adventure movies, where he buys a motorcycle and vanishes, running into highwaymen and troubles and having all sorts of fun experiences. No overprotective mom, no uptight dad, no _Cooper_ , no Tyler -- just Blaine, for a couple of weeks. Only without a motorcycle or highwaymen or troubles, because that's not exactly his cup of tea. "Yeah, I can relate to that."

"Not exactly _from_ her," the boy titles his head and purses his lips, presumably thinking over Blaine's words. "But yes, she's a part of it. The fact that I'm going to be a poor in-debts student for the next few years is a factor, too. I want to _travel_ , to see the world -- so I'm doing it while I can."

"I know how you feel," is Blaine's only response.

The boy turns his head and frowns at Blaine -- just frowns. At some point Blaine turns his head, as well, and that's how they spend the next minute: staring into each other's eyes as if they can actually have a conversation that way. Blaine isn't too sure what the other boy is _looking_ _for_ in his eyes -- but he isn't complaining. He gets the chance to do nothing but try and sort the colors the boy’s eyes are made of into groups of greens, blues and grays with no interruption. Eventually, the boy turns his head back to face the sea.

"Kurt Hummel," is all he says.

It takes Blaine a few seconds to realize this total stranger just gave him his full name -- and is he suggesting they Facebook-friend each other? -- before he quickly answers, "Blaine Anderson. And, uh, you still didn't answer my question."

Kurt -- _Kurt_ , Blaine repeats in his head, because obviously he has yet to truly cross the line from which it is impossible to be creepier -- tips his head sideways and smiles a little crooked smile that makes Blaine's heart decide it can outrun Usain Bolt, all without breaking eye contact with the never-ending blue they are sitting so close to. "Perspective, aren't we, Mr. Anderson? How about you share your story with the class before I do that. I asked first and it's only good manners. Then I can tell you what I'm doing here -- and by _'here'_ , I assume you mean this particular spot."

Blaine thinks it over for less than a second, and nods. Fair enough. "I'm here... on vacation, with my brother," he pauses, then rethinks what he said and adds, "Well not really _with_ him. Only officially. He's not really into traveling, or touring, or... anything out of hthe hotel, really. I love going around, seeing the view, feeling the air."

He feels the need to shrug as he says this; he has a problem of apologizing for every action, he knows that, but part of this is his impossible _need_ to get people to like him -- to impress _everyone_ , even mere strangers whose opinion should not matter to him in the least. He shrugs as if it'd make what he said any less weird in his own ears, or Kurt's ones -- but Kurt doesn't seem fazed in the slightest, and Blaine would probably lie if asked about his exhale of relief.

"Do you love him?" Kurt asks instead, and when Blaine frowns at him, he clarifies, "Your brother. Hotel rooms and pools versus a hiker at heart, who gets far more excited about nature than A.C. Your bother sounds ordinary and dull -- sort of like the opposite of you, right?"

Blaine isn't sure whether to blush -- because the opposite of _‘ordinary and dull'_ is a compliment, he’s sure -- or to be offended in Cooper's sake because, hey, that's his _brother_ , and despite their differences, there's nothing quite like family. He chooses to do neither, eventually.

"Of course I love him, he's my brother," Blaine sighs. He knows it’s ought to be more complicated than that, but really, it's not. He doesn't see Cooper enough for them to get into any real fight or a deep connection, so in the end, their brotherhood is the only thing bonding them together. It's a somewhat sad truth, but most of the time he feels no need to change that, because honestly, it doesn't bother him much.

"I have a brother," Kurt says fairly out of the blue, but Blaine isn't sure whether he's just thinking out loud or actually talking to him, because his gaze is fixed on where the sun is making its way slowly up the sky. "Well, he's a step-brother, but it doesn't seem to make as much of a difference as I originally thought it would. We used to disagree, back in high-school when our parents first got married  – and I mean honestly, I’m talking like I'm some old man -- but --" he turns his head once again, giving Blaine a gentle, content smile. "I love him, now. He's my family, just like my dad and his mom are."

The soft way Kurt is speaking of his relatives, the way he smiles, the way his hand absently touch the necklace hiding under his top -- Blaine is almost certain it has something to do with them, the colorful beads, some emotional connection that forms a story to be told around the Christmas tree with the fire lit up -- is something that makes Blaine's heart thump a little harder in his chest. He doesn't have that, not really. His father and he have long since talked their problems out, but despite finally being able to joyfully say he _knows_ his father would attend his hypothetical future wedding, and even find happiness in it, he can't really say he sees him joining the Pride Parade anytime soon. His and Cooper's relationship is almost a ghost: it's there, but it's not _alive_. And his mom is great, she is, but Blaine would never be able to say that he can tell his mother everything without feeling like a liar. He loves all of them, but he knows they all lack exactly what Kurt just unintentionally modeled to him -- the softness in your tone that unknowingly crawls in when you talk about someone you'll die for without thinking twice, just because you care for them.

"I grew up in a small town," Kurt says after they sit in silence for about five minutes, admiring the view and flipping their thoughts over and over like a coin in the hand of a child. "A small town in the Midwest -- not the best place to live in, for my type of people."

Blaine breathes in as slurred words and uncontrolled ghost memory of punches to the ribs comes rushing in; there are certain statements Blaine can wholeheartedly agree to, and this one is somewhere there on the top of the list.

"I spent eighteen years of my life dying to get out of there -- and everyone kept telling me that the moment I'll be out, I'd beg to come back. That the real world is a cruel place and I live in a dream world where everything is sunshine and perfection." He scoffs, curling in on himself as he draws his knees closer to him. "They know nothing. But I did," he smiles, first at the sea and then at Blaine. "I got out. And the first thing I did, instead of going with my best friend to take a look at our apartment after we bought it two months ago, was to come here. To San Francisco, California. And you know something? I haven't regretted a single moment of my life since I did."

Blaine grins at that, nudging Kurt's shoulder -- which really, should feel more than just weird or out of place, but doesn't. Even if this is a stranger who has poured his story into Blaine and let it fill him up like he's a new aquarium standing empty, waiting for the newly purchased goldfish -- it just feels natural. The mere thought should freak Blaine out more than it excites him, but it doesn't, like many things in the time he spent with Kurt Hummel, the former stranger who likes to climb down deserted emergency-exit staircases and sit on thin shorelines in California.

"And don't think I haven't noticed that you only told me what you're doing here in San Francisco, Blaine. You're not the only one who can be perspective. You still owe me that life story, and I still have to explain why I came down here -- and I have an excellent memory, so I won't forget."

When twenty minutes later -- minutes that are silent of words, but also so heavy Blaine felt as if an invisible being was tying ropes around him, linking the other end of them to Kurt -- the noise from the cars above them gets louder, implying it's too late to keep sitting there and have a few moments of blessed hush, Kurt reaches out and only says, "Phone," and Blaine gives it to him.

And when Cooper asks him three hours later why he's grinning goofily at his phone instead of eating his eggs, well, Cooper can just keep wondering, because Blaine doesn't owe him anything but three dollars and a fruit-basket for bringing that girl in at three and a half a.m., causing him to go on what he thought would be an innocent stroll on the Golden Gate Bridge.


End file.
